The Rise of Reed Galvin

It is not every day that you wake up to find the President of the United States had singled out your son for scorn overnight.

It is fewer days that the President gets your son's name wrong in the scorning. Instead of Reed Galen, Trump Tweeted his name as Reed Galvin.

Alas.

As you may have read, The Lad, Reed Galen has left the GOP and is one of the ringleaders of a group called the Lincoln Project which is dedicated to (a) getting under Donald Trump's skin as often as possible, and (b) helping to defeat him in the Fall.

Reed Galvin is one of a group of high powered former Republicans who are joining their talents for creativity, politics, and organization calling their effort "The Lincoln Project."

The Lincoln Project, on Monday, released an ad titled "Mourning in America." It is a pun on the famous (and very effective) ads run by the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan titled "Morning in America."

The Reagan ads pointed out all the wonderful things that Americans were enjoying in the Summer and Fall of 1984. Life in America may not have been the Ozzie and Harriet world that the ads portrayed, but the country was certainly in better shape than it had been under Jimmy Carter.

Did it work? Reagan won 49 states that year.

Anyway, back to the "Mourning in America" ad.

Trump, dragging his chains around the Residence in the White House like Marley's ghost, worked himself up into a frenzy about the ad.

Here is the series of Trump's Tweets, unedited:

A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, "Morning in America", doing everything possible to....

....get even for all of their many failures. You see, these loser types don't care about 252 new Federal Judges, 2 great Supreme Court Justices, a rebuilt military, a protected 2nd Amendment, biggest EVER Tax & Regulation cuts, and much more. I didn't use any of them....

....because they don't know how to win, and their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe. I don't know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad. John Weaver lost big for Kasich (to me). Crazed Rick Wilson..

....lost for Evan "McMuffin" McMullin (to me). Steve Schmidt & Reed Galvin lost for John McCain, Romney's campaign manager (?) lost big to "O", & Jennifer Horn got thrown out of the New Hampshire Republican Party. They're all LOSERS, but Abe Lincoln, Republican, is all smiles!..

There is a theory known as the "Streisand Effect" defined in Wikipedia as:

a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information

As I am writing this on Tuesday afternoon, the "Mourning in America" ad has been viewed 8.2 million times, according to a senior official at the Lincoln Project.

Ok, ok, it was Reed. He's still taking my phone calls.

That means Donald Trump has, however unwittingly, presented the group with tens of millions of dollars in free publicity.

Trump obviously got Reed's name wrong, perhaps having read it through a Big Mac wrapper.

Reed's GOP creds are way better than Trump's. While I have been an Article I (Legislative Branch) guy, Reed has been an Article II (Executive Branch) employee. Among other positions, he was in the Advance Office for President George W. Bush and was so good at it he was appointed Director of Advance for W's re-election campaign.

Trump has been a member of - and given money to - whichever party and candidate suited his business interests at any given moment.

Someone asked me if I was jealous of Reed. I said I was thrilled that the torch of professional excellence had been passed, and he was proudly carrying it up a hill of his own choosing.

What could be better than that?

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Worldometer virus tracking site, to the Reagan ad, and to the Lincoln Project ad. Also a link to the Streisand Effect.